Goooooooood morning Wii U Daily! Zorpix here, and you may have seen Ashley’s review of Mario Kart 8 go live on the site a week or so ago. As many of you know, that review came out before the game did. Apparently I’m not special enough for Nintendo to send me free games. After all the good things I say about their managementand company, too!

Okay, maybe it’s kinda obvious why I didn’t get a review copy… Either way, I bought the game myself, and have already put a good 20 or so hours into it. Time to get back on Nintendo’s good side! …Or will I?

Since this is my own thing, I won’t be following the review standards for the site. Please understand that the lack of professionality in my opinion articles don’t represent the professionality of Wii U Daily as a whole. This isn’t an official review. Just me throwing out some thoughts about the game that happen to be categorized. If you’d like to see a professional review written by me, check out my review for Skylanders: SWAP Force that I did ages ago (Spoiler alert, I liked it).

First Impressions

Upon first firing up Mario Kart 8, the first thing I noticed was how simplistic most of the presentation was. It doesn’t look bad by any means, it’s just not what I was expecting. The menu for online play is more what I had in mind. A menu with a cute animation in the background of Toads floating around in space.

The next thing I took notice of was how long it took to load a character. After hovering over them, it sometimes takes a bit for them to show up inside the car off to the side of the roster. Again, it’s not really a problem so much as it’s just a tad odd. I’m guessing they were either trying to save resources or are loading more things behind the scenes.

Once I finally got to the race though, all was forgotten. I was zipping in and out of corners, flying off the side of the track, and being impressed by how quickly I was put back on.

Anti Gravity was a cool idea that I’m happy to have added. Though it’s been done before, it’s done better here. This new feature gave the track designers the freedom they needed to really shine in their development.

On the same note, these are the best Mario Kart tracks I’ve ever seen. Every single one is a joy to play on. Even the remastered tracks feel brand new with their tweaks. There were a few that I couldn’t even recognize at first. If anything shines in this game, it’s the incredible track design.

Slight Changes

The first change I noticed was the difference in drifting. I still can’t put my finger on it, but it just seems different. My friends and I have noticed that bikes cut harder than karts, so maybe I’m too used to sliding around corners. Either way, I’m much better now!

Another thing I’ve experienced is that items don’t seem to do as much anymore. This really ramps up difficulty, as the game is now more focused on driving skill than luck of the items. I’m for and against this.

I like it because it gives my single player experience something more in depth than just driving around the track. I find myself carefully calculating things such as when to start drifting, which route is really the fastest, and if I like the teddy bear car because it has good stats, or it’s just adorable.

What I don’t like about the game’s new depth is that it makes it less viable as a party game. For your friends who are okay with learning the game’s new mechanics and giving it time, it simply makes it more fun. For those who just want to pick up a controller and play, it can be a bit frustrating. Flying off the track seems like a much more common occurrence with these new physics. While a welcome challenge for some, it could also serve as an unwanted annoyance for others.

But back on the topic of items, they seem less central in this installment of the Mario Kart series. They seem to screw up other players just fine, but as far as mushrooms or starmans go, these seem to pack the least amount of punch we’ve seen yet. Simply running off road can drop you as much as 5 places, whereas a star may not even gain you one. It’s hard to get used to, but items seem to be more opportunistic than they used to be, meant to be saved for just the right moment.

Balancing Act

While items may seem nerfed or ineffective, they all seem more balanced. Getting blue shelled isn’t going to lose the race for you any more than sliding on a banana will (still sucks to get sniped right at the end, though!). Blue shells are back on the ground as well, meaning they can still knock over other players along the way. This makes more sense to me, as blue shells never seemed to directly help the user before. They were more of a giant middle finger to the racer in first. It’s not at the point where it’s hitting everyone in its path, but this is a good middle ground.

Karts and bikes also seem to have gotten balanced. Besides their drifting differences, they seem pretty even. In Mario Kart Wii, I felt bikes had a slight advantage as they were able to do wheelies for extra speed and seemed to be faster. But now they both seem to be quite balanced, and I find myself switching between the two rather frequently.

Online Play

As many have stated, the biggest hitch with online play comes from shortcomings of the Wii U itself. A hidden messaging system and no friend invites leave my friend only games blank. It is possible to join a friend’s current game session via the “freinds” menu online, but getting a few friends together still requires communication outside the system.

Also, there’s no public chat. I… I’m still just shaking my head about this one. Monster Hunter does it! Why can’t Mario Kart do it?

The online gameplay is fun and enjoyable, just like your offline experiences will probably be. You join lobbies, do races or battles, and win/lose points based on your position that affect your ranking. It’s simplistic, but it gets the job done.

I’ve had a few issues staying connected, and I’ve heard mixed responses about this. It doesn’t seem to be client side, as most of the people reporting connection hiccups have solid internet connections. I’m assuming that Nintendo’s servers just weren’t ready for the load it’s been receiving.

Block Fort Blues?

Of all the changes in Mario Kart 8, I think this is the one I’ve heard complained about the most. Battles no longer take place in arenas. They take place on some of the retro courses, and have players driving around those instead of traditional battle arenas.

I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first, but I fully enjoyed my time battling. I loved hiding in the reeds of Dry Desert, or camping under bridges in Doughnut Plains 2. It’s a fun switch from traditional arenas, but I don’t think a single soul would complain if we saw “battle packs” being released as DLC. I’m counting on such DLC happening.

Babies and Turtles

Okay, Nintendo… We have to talk about your baby obsession. There are five babies taking up slots in this roster. Seven koopalings as well. The koopalings I’m not too sad about, because they’re bright, colorful, and kinda fun to play as. I just wish they had more to their characters than simply looking different and being in different weight classes.

Babies should have skipped the roster altogether. I suppose I can understand Baby Mario and Baby Luigi. Fine. Have your babies, Nintendo. But Baby Rosalina? Baby Daisy? Those characters have never appeared in games outside the Mario Kart series. WHY did we need babies for these characters? It makes no sense, and looks silly.

Who would I want as extra characters? Well due to Nintendo’s recent obsession with Cranky Kong, I could see him coming aboard. I wouldn’t mind him, Boo, a Goomba, Ballyhoo and Big Top (Mario Party 7), Bowser Jr., Diddy Kong, Spike, Wiggler, or even ROB. You get my point. There were a LOT of options outside of the babies, but we ended up with five of them. Yaaaaaaay.

Stealing the Show

One of my favorite new features is Mario Kart TV, and the highlight reels. I love that Nintendo is getting more connected with Google and the like, letting you upload videos directly to YouTube. I wish there were more editing options for highlight reels, such as controlling camera angles and scrolling through all the footage in order to hone in on moments of your choosing. The slow motion can’t even be saved to your videos (at least not that I’m aware of).

Still, it’s a fun way to get your racing highlights out there for the public, and I think it’s a really fun idea. Below is a video of me and my girlfriend’s second race together!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fnPrvLCFQE]

Down the final stretch…

Mario Kart 8 is fun. If you want a kart racer that you’ll keep coming back to for the improvements you’ll see in your skill, this is a good one for you. If you’re just looking for a fun party game, go ahead and pick this up keeping in mind that it has more of a learning curve than you’d expect. For a 60 dollar title, a lack of things to do starts showing up fairly quickly. This game almost feels rushed in some aspects, such as some minor details getting overlooked. Lap and final times no longer show up at the end of versus or grand prix races, for example.

Despite its shortcomings, this game will keep the kart racer in you satisfied for at least a few months, if not longer. It’s a solid racing title — and with the deal for the extra game — it’s totally worth the cash.

Miiverse and Zorpix

This week, I have some tournament news for you all!

Wii U Daily Official Tourney

Code: 1457-7399-3084

Time: Wednesdays, 16:00-22:00 (4PM to 10PM. I believe it might be central time, so GMT -5)

Items: All

Class: 150cc

COM: no COM

8 races

Global

Those are the rules for the official Wii U Daily tournament! It’s first day will be today! These times are subject to change based on participation, so please check the Zorpix Den every week for any changes. Due to my scheduling, I may not always be able to participate. Please understand.

Zorpix Official Tourney

Code: 9270-3285-4848

Time: ALL DAY EVERY DAY, BABY! WOO WOO!

Items: All

Class: 150cc

COM: easy COM

4 races

Global

This is my tourney that I’ll be participating in from time to time. I hope we can get both these tournaments up and running as best we can! I also like popping into friend games randomly, so be on the lookout for me 😉

I think I’ll save my highlight reels for next week. Have a good week guys!

Wrapping up

Woo! We had a long one today! Thank you for sticking it out to the end!

If you do happen to have any suggestions for next week’s topic, any questions about the content I wrote, or just wanna say hey, feel free to sound off below! If you really feel inclined, you can mosey on over to my Twitter, Facebook, or Miiverse account.

I’m slowing down accepting friend requests on the Wii U. I’ll still accept a few here and there, but I have to start cutting down. I went from 10 to 50 friends in a day. Thank you so much for the support!

Thanks for reading, and happy racing! Hope to see you on the track soon!

Don’t know if I will be able to make the tourney Zorpix …. but will try (work and more work). Anyone can add me in the Miiverse …. ID is Bistricky …. big surprise ….. another fantastic and thought-out article Zorpix …. might not agree with all you post but you do make your points with clarity and reasoning …. far better then the high-paid journalists of today. Cheers to you 😀

I found it rather pessimistic myself. I found the opposite on most of your points above to be true. There actually is differences between karts and bikes in speed, it depends on the course, Nintendo actually show cased that in a video. There were several other points i disagreed with but you still made a good in-depth review of the game.

But yeah, it was meant to be a bit pessimistic. The game is fun, but overall I was disappointed

Zuxs13

Thats rough, I found this to be by far the best Mario Kart made. The battle mode sucks (though i dont play it any way) but other then that everything else is fantastic.

I love the presentation of the game, it’s so easy to read and tell what i am looking at on the menus, unlike most games these days.

I didn’t find the items to be less effective, i found them to be better effective. You use mushrooms to take short cuts, not speed past a whole line of people. There are so many ways to get speed boosts on the track that the mushrooms are now more useful off the track.

I agree with you on the babies and turtles, hopefully that will leave room for DLC or NFP figurines.

Im glad there is no voice-chat i don’t want to hear 12-15 boys trying to talk smack while im racing. But it should be there for those who do enjoy all the junk.

I enjoy this game, all the family loves it. But something is very weird : no mini map on TV. Having to watch the gamepad is disturbing and makes me crash. If you play with the wiimote and wheels, as my wife does, you simply have no map. And when the race is over, they don’t give your time and you opponents’ times, do they ?? So, with no map on the mainscreen and no times, i never know if the opponents were far away or close to me. I would have liked an option menu (for sound, hud…). Else, the game is great. That MKTV and slow motion are gorgeous ! I agree with you for the bikes, i’m used to cars. Bikes cuts more. Turbo when drifting takes longer : going left right left right doesnt change anything like before (n64), you just have to slide long…

no problems here yet, amsterdam holland. i do see people popping in and out while a game is being set up, I drive with my brother multiplayer online and just simply choose world (sometimes local) works fine though

Sean Jarret

Wait, wait, wait – we have a WiiU daily weekly tournament?

Adrian Brown

“Also, there’s no public chat. I… I’m still just shaking my head about
this one. Monster Hunter does it! Why can’t Mario Kart do it?”

The big difference is that in MH you all need to cooperate, and you don’t want to insult people that are helping YOU. On the other hand, MK is 100% about defeating others, wich may lead to angry people screaming at others. I’m glad you can chat with your friends but not with random strangers.

Superbax

I wish you could do voice chat with your friends during the race. I had no time to defend Shy Guy Falls when my friend insulted it.

I dont agree with u guys when I’m playing MK8 online in a race its intense i wouldn’t like friends or strangers putting me off thanks,chatting before and after is the best way for such a competitive game,COD online does my head in i mute in game chat as it spoils my game people shouting camper ect about 1000 times,in MonsterHunter wiiu its a co-op work together game so in game chat really helps with this type game but competitive battling against each other games its not worth it you guys have no lives the only need for in game chat is with co-op games like X,Monsterhunter ect…

I’m really wondering whether or not to dive into MH as I’m worried if a new one comes out, they’ll butcher online from MH3U.

Adrian Brown

you can still enjoy it, I bet Capcom will let the servers open for a few more years. It’s a great game with hundreds of quests and now it’s really cheap

matt

Monster hunter is for teenagers and up,Mariokart is for everyone ie children play it….i know kids play COD as well but there not meant too.

Look i go online click on friends/rivals and just create rooms for my friends only and we chat and hey 95% of my wiiu friends are just online friends so in a way they are strangers so get friend requesting 100 mariokart gamers from wara wara plaza and just create friend only races it’s quite easy….

palomino blue

Voice chat should stay on with friends during the races. I find it just turns into everyone screaming trying to say something before the chat cuts out and the race starts.

C4

Agreed about the handling. Light weight characters are a bit easier to handle especially on narrower tracks but they take the shorter stick when it comes to collisions. Customization only can do so much. My advice in local MP to stick to similar weight characters for all players, if you don’t want those issues…

“Getting blue shelled isn’t going to lose the race for you any more than
sliding on a banana will (still sucks to get sniped right at the end,
though!).”

Unless you’re mid-air and Lakitu decides to put you back in front of the jump.

Yeah, Lakitu got a lot nicer. I’ve always wanted to drive as lakitu and have lakitu put me back on the track #illuminati

JB

Great piece as usual. Though you say it’s not a professional review, it still kinda felt like one, albeit a little more laid back.

“Fine. Nintendo, have your babies” I don’t know why I found that so funny!! Though to be fair, Outside of Mario Kart, Baby Peach has been in five other games, dating back to the DS days and Baby Daisy was in Mario Super Sluggers (I think?) Baby Rosalina is new, but maybe they wanted to round out the Mario Baby Collection. (Though Baby Rosalina is so adorable that I’m glad they put her in the game. LOL) I think they added all the baby/metallic characters to bolster the human count in the game. It would’ve been nice if Nintendo went old school and added Pauline or Donkey Kong Jr. to the mix. Princess Eclair is an obscure Mario character, but they could have inserted her as well. 🙂

Character loading on the select screen was a tad off putting at first, but I think back how bad it is with Killer Instinct on XBox One. It takes *at least* 10-12 seconds for it to load after selecting a character!

Bad Geometry nickered my opportunity. I still live in the law of the land of the, er, parent’s house. Still, maybe Wii U will be just be the first console I buy. On the good side, two of my friends are considering!

Squid

I agree with most of this, I’m glad you posted you’re impressions considering we didn’t get really far on the conversation we were having on the other article.

I think it’s situational genius. I’ve noticed that Coms LOVE to smack you from point blank, and when they’re remotely close their aim is tried and true xD. This tragically in a tight pack can lead so some ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL combos haha. It’s certainly dif than in previous games.

When it comes to extra characters, I was really surprised that the robot from “NintendoLand” wasn’t an option.

BTW, I’ve been to lazy to pull out older versions (about to use 250 coins to buy the N64 version for my kid’s Wii U to test), but I remember not being able to access courses in a faster class until you beat the previous course in the same class, not unlocking it in 50cc then it being available in 150cc. Am I wrong, or just senile?

I sorta remember something like that… but in order to unlock 150cc you have to get a gold trophy in all 100cc races, so it balances out

Damien Wiltshire

Red shell back homing has been removed
and there appears to be a system where if you hold onto a horn for two long someone will get a lightning bolt and redshells follow in med air not waiting for you to land anymore is annoying

haha, well check again. I just ran through both DD and wii Gran Prix 100% before the Mk8 release and I’m near 100% positive there’s never been backhoming. They essentially turned into slow mo green shells

Damien Wiltshire

They sit and proximity home in previous games not sure about wii version didn’t play it enough

BTW slight correction Zorpix, it was Mario Party 8, not 7.
Other than that I agree especially with the baby thing, they could’ve just released a baby dlc pack later if they really wanted to maybe include baby yoshi in there too. I also dislike battle mode for it’s lack of other mini games such as the bomb omb one in double dash and shine thief. The game is still plenty entertaining just very lacking if you want to do something other than race. Hopefully it’ll still be supported and polished through patches.

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